Conventional dishwasher appliances typically include a cabinet that defines a washing chamber for receiving items for washing. A door mounted to the cabinet provides selective access to the washing chamber. The door is normally mounted to the cabinet using hinges that allow the door to rotate between an open configuration and a closed configuration. To assist a user in opening and closing the door, the hinge can be coupled to tension springs. The tension springs are configured so that the amount of force a user needs to apply to the door in order to adjust the door between the open and closed configurations is reduced.
When servicing a dishwasher appliance, a technician may need to remove the door of the dishwasher appliance. In certain current dishwasher designs, the hinges that couple the door to the cabinet cannot be easily accessed by the technician in order to remove the door from the cabinet. Thus, the technician must slide the dishwasher appliance out of a countertop enclosure that houses the dishwasher appliance in order to access the hinges and remove the door. However, removing the dishwasher appliance from its enclosure may be a time consuming process because the appliance's electrical and plumbing connections must normally be severed in order to move the appliance.
In addition, removing the appliance from its enclosure may also damage an appliance owner's flooring as the appliance slides across the flooring. Also, the technician must normally decouple the hinge from the door's tension springs in order to remove the door from the cabinet. Decoupling the tension springs from the hinges can be another time consuming process.
Accordingly, new hinge designs are needed that can allow for quick removal of a door of a dishwasher appliance without having to remove the appliance from the appliance's enclosure. Such a hinge design that can also allow for removal of the door without having to decouple the door's hinges from the door's tension springs is also needed.